Shelisa Demuth, a school shooting survivor and the daughter of Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth (R), publicly criticized her mother on social media Thursday for failing to advance a gun control bill before the end of the state's legislative session earlier this week.
Social Media Criticism
"[I]magine being the first House Speaker in state history who is also the mother of two school shooting victims and conveniently deferring a gun control bill to the next legislative session," wrote Shelisa Demuth on Threads.
The Gun Control Bill
The bill, which originally passed in the Minnesota Senate, aimed to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, as well as target nearly untraceable "ghost guns." Everytown For Gun Safety, a gun violence prevention organization, praised the bill in a news release, calling it a "critical step forward in efforts to strengthen public safety and reduce gun violence across the state." In February, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) described the bill as "common sense measures" and an "opportunity to make Minnesota the safest state around gun violence."
Personal Experience
Shelisa Demuth was a student at Rocori High School in 2003 when a 15-year-old student shot and killed two classmates. In a Tuesday op-ed for The Minnesota Star Tribune titled "What my mother got wrong on gun reform," she wrote that "Minnesota has a problem," citing two recent gun violence incidents: the politically motivated fatal shooting of Minnesota State Rep. Melissa Hortman (D), and a shooting at a Minnesota Catholic school that killed two children and injured 28 people.
"We love monuments in this country," the op-ed continued. "We erect memorials, hold vigils, name highways. They did it at my high school in Cold Spring after two classmates were killed in 2003. They are doing it now for Melissa Hortman. Remembrance matters. But remembrance is hollow when it arrives absent the courage to change. Too often, we honor the past while declining to protect the future."
Political Fallout
Parents of the victims and survivors of the Annunciation Catholic School shooting, along with members of Minnesota's Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, expressed fury at Lisa Demuth, who is also running for governor, for holding the bill hostage. Walz wrote on X on May 11, "All the victims are asking for is a vote on gun violence prevention. If Republicans are against it, they can vote no. But Minnesotans deserve to know where their representatives stand."
Shelisa Demuth said her mother will be remembered for her failure to act. "Professionally, my mother prides herself on being fair," she wrote in her op-ed. "She is now running for governor, an office that will require her to bring opponents to the table to negotiate the tough issues, not avoid them. The session she just closed will be her legacy as speaker. The question it leaves behind is not a partisan one. It belongs to every parent who sends a child to school, every neighbor who has attended a vigil, every voter deciding in November what kind of future we will build."
Lisa Demuth did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
